Me and My Self-Harming Cat

"I can't believe you said that."
"Well... she's. I mean she's great She's friendly and everything, but she's not exactly attractive is she?"
"That's really mean."
"You said yourself, she's a bit gray..."
"I can't believe you're bitching about our cat."
"Well, all I'm saying is there's a reason why no-one wants to adopt her."
"Fine."

The following conversation came back to haunt me when I surprised my foster cat in the act of tearing out the fur on her head. The scratching was so fast tempo it sounded like the whir of a desk fan on the highest setting.
"Stop it puss. What are you doing to yourself?"
Small clumps of white hair polka-dotted the red blanket we'd laid over the bed to save the duvet from her claws and her cat litter footprints. She looked up at me, non-plussed. It wasn't feeding time, so she only kicked in the low-level purring when I put my hand to her face.

It was only when I got back from the theatre that night that I really saw the full extent of what she'd done. Her white head was slashed with red, where the ahir had been pulled up by the roots. She seemed to have forgotten all about it, whickering happily enough while I clumsily dabbed it clean with water and toilet paper.

I opened the bathroom cupboard, but the plasters and the antibiotic cream seemed all wrong. Wouldn't she just rip and lick off anything I tried to put on the wound, poisoning and chocking herself on my good intentions? I also thought about emailing the woman who had dropped her off. Did she need to go to the vet (and the selfish follow-up, and who would pay)?

With an internet connection like ours (purloined, unreliable) scouring is really the wrong verb for what we can do to the web, but I brushed up against a couple of cat behaviour sites and chatrooms looking for answers. The results were inconclusive, but one theme was repeated, in various hysterical and professional keys.

Our cat had low esteem. And it was all my fault.

Cat Attack

We always knew Brooklyn wasn't gone to be one of those cutesy I Has Cheezburger kittehs, not least because she never sat still long enough to capture on film. What we didn't expect was the spitting, clawing hell-cat that ran across the room to sink her claws and teeth into Chris' bare legs. She'd hissed at him before when he'd crossed her path or accidentally backed her into a corner, but this was something different: a bloody, full-throttle attack that only ended with Chris physically throwing her away and us barricading ourselves in our bedroom. This was the same cat that had sat peaceably on my lap all morning as I typed on my laptop, purring like an animal possessed. Who rubbed herself in and out of both our legs as if trying to tie us to her.

The mewing from the other side of the door was pitiful, but when I opened up she ran past me to spit and arch at Chris once more. It took all my wheedling (and a tray of KitEKat) to distract her while Chris eased past and out of the door, holding a towel, matador-like, in his bleeding hands. I followed and our positions were officially reversed: Brooklyn held the bedroom, while the living room (complete with litter tray and door to the outside world) was ours.

It was to prove a hollow victory. In our haste to escape another mauling we'd left our wallets behind in the other room. While Chris washed off his cuts and bites I called the woman who had landed us in this fine mess in the first place.
"Look, are you sure it was a deliberate attack?"
"She ran from the other side of the room, and then she clamped on and wouldn't let go. It was scary."
"If you're really scared, just let her out a window."
"We're on the third floor."
"Look, I've thirty cats and dogs here that I'm trying to get adopted... can I come pick her up tonight. Seven, say?"
With a little firm talking I battled her down to a couple of hours. Which in reality, turned out to be five.

More pressingly our insurance cards were shut away in the other room and we had $2.80 in cash, scavenged from the change-bowl. And now we were about to have our first encounter with the much-demonised US health care system.

Meanwhile, locked in the outer room, Brooklyn yowled as if she knew she had just got herself exiled again...